Bethesda has the best fan interaction *ever*

[Brother None]

Several of our posters pointed out that one of Bethesda's devs is working hard on the Something Awful forums, giving us the only thing that can calm us down, info on what the game would be like...oh wait, no he isn't:<blockquote>Hardcore Fallout fans are already registering accounts on the Elder Scrolls forums for the sole purpose of telling us how much we suck, and that this is the worst decision in the history of the industry. Hooray!

I felt a little guilty posting this, knowing that ropekid was going to see it. I certainly understand his frustration, and I hope that we don't let him down.


To the folks asking us to not make Fallout just like Morrowind:
Gee, thanks. We never would've thought of that, had you not mentioned it. I was already writing up design docs that included entire plot lines about cliffracers; I guess maybe now I'll get rid of those, thanks to your quick thinking.

Edit: I tried to register an account at NMA to tell them how much we appreciate their support, but I never got the confirmation Email. Looks like their forums are down now, so no big loss I guess.[...]
I am desperately trying to keep up with everything being posted here, on the official forums, NMA, and a few other places. (I stopped reading RPG codex because it made my head hurt.)

I also need to find time to play through Fallout 2 now, which is a game I never got to. Don't know when the hell that's going to happen, as I'm a little behind on work as it is.

Edit: personal thought - I find it fascinating that so many people simply assume we're going to re-texture Morrowind, change a few lines of dialogue, and release a new game. Aside from the fact that I've already said we recognize that the Fallout world is one QUITE different from the Elder Scrolls, I know all too well where Morrowind fell short, and I assure you that we're quite capable of learning from it.[...]
Thanks for all the words of support, folks.

The SuperNerds are already demanding answers about how the game's going to play (they're clogging up my oh-so-pristine, military-state-run, official forums right now, with their fluids and diseases) and the fucking ink on the deal isn't even dry yet.

Based on the fact that I had to keep this secret, you can trust that even if I knew any details on the project, I wouldn't really be able to talk about them. I imagine at some point, we're going to be doing some hiring. I also imagine a lot of decisions are going to be made - some of which I have no doubt will piss people off.

I guess all I can say for now is that I really hope we can put together something that lives up to (realistic) expectations. I, for one, am very excited to have a chance to work on something that's so fundamentally different from Morrowind.
Yeah, you'd think the Gamespot interview would've calmed them down some, but now they're more angry than ever. NERD RAGE!</blockquote>I'm guessing Bethesda's infamous "we listen to the fans" follows that age-old Interplay addition "as long as we agree with them". Can't take the heat? You shouldn't have bought the license then. Maybe the only reason we "Supernerds" are getting so worked up is because nobody is telling us anything?

And nobody be asinine enough to pretend that fans have the same responsibility towards devs in polite behaviour as vice versa.

 

[Lost Metal]

I wonder what would happen If we all publicly boycotted a first person/realtime fallout 3 and bethesda products, if it would just back them in a corner and force them to do fallout the right way ... no, that's too evil.

Will probably end up coming to that though, eventually.

 

[Nebaka]

How lame of you to quote him as a representative of Bethesda outside the SA forums, while in his profile he specifically asks you not to. Besides, they only just bought the damn license, why all the whining when even Bethesda probably still doesn't know exactly what they're going to do with it?

 

[Lys]

How lame of you to quote him as a representative of Bethesda outside the SA forums, while in his profile he specifically asks you not to. Besides, they only just bought the damn license, why all the whining when even Bethesda probably still doesn't know exactly what they're going to do with it?

Glad to see more than one game maker has its fanboys

 

[Will_c]

Yeh, all this is getting a bit old now. It is true it's too early on to give any definate answers about what the game will be like at all, and just because they made Morrowind, doesn't mean they will always be making games like Morrowind, obviously.

It's understandable that we are all concerned about how it's going to be made but i'm sure the time will come when we will be able to give our own criticisms on what they have ideas for, when they make those ideas.

 

[Odin]

How lame of you to quote him as a representative of Bethesda outside the SA forums, while in his profile he specifically asks you not to. Besides, they only just bought the damn license, why all the whining when even Bethesda probably still doesn't know exactly what they're going to do with it?

erm..ever heard the term public forum....

 

[Phil]

I wonder what would happen If we all publicly boycotted a first person/realtime fallout 3 and bethesda products, ..

Nothing. There are too few of us. The only thing we can do is hope we can provide valuable insights in the fallout universe so the devs will accept/appreciate our input/idea's/comments.

On the other hand, yeah, bethesda could have expected this 'rage'. Fallout fans ARE a rather unique kind of fans, showing both intelligence & the ability to piss others off in a matter of seconds.

So, I wonder: are we going continue a) bothering with the bethesda followers who enjoy consoles & Morrowind, thus causing the devs to take a stand against the fallout fanbase , or b) are we going to actually generate some useful response ? I'd rather not see us make the mistake of 'scaring' the (future) devs away.

Thing is: they couldn't care less about us. There are a lot of fallout fans (visit slashdot someday), but the real fanbase is what, about 2000 ppl ? They won't even notice it if we 'decide to boycot' their products.

Don't get me wrong, I would be pretty pissed off too if they used a first person perspective. Tactical combat would be fairly non-existent. The ability to 'leave your body and get a high overview' could prove to be a possible compromise.

My 2 cents.

 

[Ché]

I understand where he is coming from, it's like some politician who didn't even announce his plan, gets clawed done for being a nazi fuhrer, without any proof whatsoever.

I seriously think we should all calm down, and handle things like polite and civilized beings, instead of being under a constant depression.

Really man, already he showed he doesn't really like us, and he has every right to, cause we sure have been rude.
And continuation of this behaviour will surely not aid us at all.

On a side note, if the big bosses order them to NOT REVEAL ANYTHING, then they are not allowed to release anything.
Simple as that, they don't owe us anything, no need to blame them or start hostilities.

 

[Nebaka]

Glad to see more than one game maker has its fanboys

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand your reply.

If I'm saying give these guys a chance, I'm a Bethesda fanboy? Hell, I've played Morrowind for like 2 minutes and that's all I know about their games. However, I've heard they're good at what they do so all the uninformed bickering here really pisses me off when practically nothing has been announced about the game.

 

[Will_c]

I understand where he is coming from, it's like some politician who didn't even announce his plan, gets clawed done for being a nazi fuhrer, without any proof whatsoever.

Just what i was thinking

 

[Bobbin]

Starting a flame war with the Bethesda devs is probably the golden path to getting FO3 the way we like it

 

[NCR_Ranger]

I've heard they're good at what they do

They don't do games that are styled the same as Fallout. Their good at what they do which has nothing to do with Fallout. Their style/sub-genre mixed with Fallout will not work. Fallout is heavily based on pen and paper role playing games, it wont be Fallout if it doesn't stick to that style.

 

[Ché]

They don't do games that are styled the same as Fallout. Their good at what they do which has nothing to do with Fallout. Their style/sub-genre mixed with Fallout will not work. Fallout is heavily based on pen and paper role playing games, it wont be Fallout if it doesn't stick to that style.

And a woman who has never given birth to a child before, is INDEED capable of delivering the world with a fine sexy stud (such as myself )

honestly thats not an argument to flame them over, it might worry you, but the best way to deal with it, is to give them a chance, and positive criticism.
Threat people as you want to be treated

 

[Sjösmeden]

Starting a flame war with the Bethesda devs is probably the golden path to getting FO3 the way we like it

We won't get it the way we want anyway, so....

 

[NCR_Ranger]

honestly that's not an argument to flame them over, it might worry you, but the best way to deal with it, is to give them a chance, and positive criticism.

The best judge of future performance is past performance.

positive criticism

Give me an example of how we can best give positive criticism based on what we've heard so far. It's bleek.

Threat people as you want to be treated

Agree.

Overall, i'm going to give them a chance and wait for them to make their "official" decisions. However, it it doesn't stay true to Fallout's pen and paper ways, then I won't feel guilty stating that it will not be up to the "Fallout Standard". It's all about the pnp roots; I mean, what's Fallout without Action Points anyway?

 

[Briosafreak]

Threat people as you want to be treated

Say that to Hayt, the developer of Bethesda that is posting these things please

And someone tell him that he can`t register because he`s using a generic e-mail, one of the forbiden here at NMA. I`M sure someone can handle that for him if he asks nicely to TEH SUPERNERDS!!11!! People are here to help

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

How lame of you to quote him as a representative of Bethesda outside the SA forums, while in his profile he specifically asks you not to. Besides, they only just bought the damn license, why all the whining when even Bethesda probably still doesn't know exactly what they're going to do with it?

How lame of him to expect people not to acknowledge he's a game developer when he's complaining about fans of a game his company just bought the rights to. Incognito isn't a one way street. If he doesn't want other people to talk about it, then he shouldn't be talking about.

Fallout 3 needs:
*Turn Based Combat
*Isometric View (rotating camera/zoomable)
*SPECIAL

You've forgotten dialogue trees.

 

[God is Dog backwards]

Threat people as you want to be treated

Say that to Hayt, the developer of Bethesda that is posting these things please

And someone tell him that he can`t register because he`s using a generic e-mail, one of the forbiden here at NMA. I`M sure someone can handle that for him if he asks nicely to TEH SUPERNERDS!!11!! People are here to help

According to that SA thread, he's decided not to post here.

 

[Nebaka]

How lame of you to quote him as a representative of Bethesda outside the SA forums, while in his profile he specifically asks you not to.

erm..ever heard the term public forum....

Public or no, the man has asked not to be quoted for his messages on that board as a Bethesda representative. Way to pick your sources, reputable news site.

 

[God is Dog backwards]

Well I'll quote Saint Proverbius if he doesn't mind:

You know, the obvious thing is that so far, this has been a PR nightmare. Let's recap this thread's take on history to put it in perspective.

Interplay announced Fallout 3 after Bethesda passed over a check to them, which supposedly catches Bethesda with their pants down. I'm not even sure this is true because the press release I got was from Pete Hines himself rather than from Interplay. Pete Hines emailed several sites about this. If you even read the press release, it starts out with "Bethesda announces". Now, you can argue whether or not Interplay wanted this, but you really can't argue that it was Bethesda that did the announcement.

At this point, people start thinking about Morrowind and Pirates of the Caribbean, their two most recently released CRPGs. This tends to get a few people a little worried and they have some doubts about whether or not Bethesda will make a Fallout 3 similar to what Fallout and Fallout 2 were considering PotC and Morrowind are nothing like the Fallout CRPGs.

Bethesda then procedes to give three interviews with various big name sites about what's going on. In those interviews, you have snippets like, "We're not going to make a top down isometric game because that's not what we do best." and "We don't know if we're going to use SPECIAL or not." Right there, you remove a lot of doubts people had about what Bethesda is going to do with Fallout.

Fans react, and not just the vocal hardcore people that every wants to think this is. I've been around the Fallout community for years now - since 2001. I've never even seen a lot of these people, and they're reacting negatively. But the point is, these people reacted because those interviews basically confirmed their fears. Before those fears were confirmed, it was pretty much a wait and see thing for a lot of people. Some people reacted quickly and violently before this, but after the interviews, more people reacted because they had ammunition.

So, next up, you have Bethesda folks also reacting to the fans reacting, and that's not pretty at all either. That only fuels the fire of the fans that much more. Really, this kind of thing is not going to stop because the fans won't stop on their own. There's no hive mind governing them nor any control in place to stop the lot of them. Bethesda on the other hand could tell their people to keep a tighter lip on what their people are saying, because that's what's really fueling this right now.

In hindsight, Bethesda probably shouldn't have announced. We can say that maybe, just maybe Interplay forced them to announce. That's fine and dandy. It's possible given that Interplay needed something good to show it's shareholders. However, Pete Hines did give those interviews to people, as did Todd Howard. Those are clearly the fault of Bethesda. Interplay can't force them to give interviews.

Sure, people have reacted poorly to this, but that's to be expected considering the history of dealing with the Fallout franchise. It's been a dumping ground for quickie buck titles since the turn of the decade. However, Bethesda employee's reaction to the situation is very, very poor and hardly constructive. In fact, it's very destructive.

What I'm basically saying is this is a viscious cycle right now, and there's really no way to get one side to stop, the larger side with no controlling body in place to tell them to stop. Fallout fans won't stop, but the Bethesda people could stop themselves or be told to stop doing things like what triggered this news item. All that does is fuel resentment.

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4813&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=100